Empowering the evangelical and baptist churches of Ecuador and Latin America, through theological education, books & literature, pastoral training programs, leadership development, educative management, and pastoral & family ministries, to become mature bodies of Christ, to in turn carry out the Great Commission around of the World. We are partners of Reaching & Teaching International Ministries
You can find more at: www.palmministries.org and www.facebook.com/joselitoyanitaorellana

Friday, April 24, 2015

The world’s languages, in 7 maps and charts

The world’s languages, in 7 maps and charts

These
seven maps and charts, visualized by The Washington Post, will help you
understand how diverse other parts of the world are in terms of
languages.1. Some continents have more languages than others

Not all continents are equally diverse in the number of spoken languages. Whereas Asia leads the statistics with 2,301 languages, Africa follows closely with 2,138.
There
are about 1,300 languages in the Pacific, and 1,064 in South and North
America. Europe, despite its many nation-states, is at the bottom of the
pack with just 286.2. These are the languages with the most native speakers

Chinese
has more native speakers than any other language, followed by Hindi and
Urdu, which have the same linguistic origins in northern India. English
comes next with 527 million native speakers. Arabic is used by nearly
100 million more native speakers than Spanish.
The numbers are
fascinating because they reflect the fact that two-thirds of the world's
population share only 12 native languages. Those numbers were recently
published by the University of Düsseldorf's Ulrich Ammon, who conducted a
15-year-long study.
His numbers are surprising, compared with the ones featured in the CIA's Factbook.
According to the CIA, Spanish is spoken by 4.85 percent of the world's
population and its use is even more widespread than English, which is
spoken by 4.83 percent. However, the CIA numbers include only first
native languages. Many people are bilingual, and whereas Spanish might
be their first native language, English could be their second one. Ammon
counts both first and second native language speakers.
The
number for Portuguese is smaller than other sources suggest because not
all Brazilians are native speakers. Some might also be surprised that
Korean does not show up on the list: Indeed, it is nearly as widely
spoken as Italian.3. This map shows the countries with the most and least diversity of languages
As
our visualization of Greenberg's diversity index shows, the United
States is not as linguistically diverse as many other nations.
If
you randomly select two people in Cameroon, for instance, there is a 97
percent likelihood that they will have different mother tongues. In the
United States, there is only a 33 percent likelihood that this is going
to happen. You can click on the various countries shown in the map
above to find out how the United States compares with other countries.4. Many popular languages are spoken in more than just one country

The
reason why English, French and Spanish are among the world's most
widespread languages has its roots in the imperial past of the nations
where they originate.5. English is widely used as an official language
However,
whether a country has English as its official language says little
about how its citizens really communicate with one another. In some of
the nations highlighted above, only a tiny minority learned English as a
native language.6. Nevertheless, most languages are
spoken only by a handful of people. That's why about half of the
world's languages will disappear by the end of the century

About
3 percent of the world's population accounts for 96 percent of all
languages spoken today. Out of all languages in the world, 2,000 have
fewer than 1,000 native speakers.
Hence, according to UNESCO
estimates, which we visualized in the map above, about half of the
world's spoken languages will disappear by the end of the century. You
can click on the map to enlarge it.
Linguistic extinction will
hit some countries and regions harder than others. In the United States,
endangered languages are primarily located along the West coast, as
well as in reservations of indigenous people in the Midwest.
Globally,the Amazon rain forest, sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, Australia and Southeast Asia are about to lose the most languages.7. This chart shows how many people learn a language all over the world

Mi Anita & mis Libros

Empowering the evangelical and baptist churches of Ecuador and Latin America, through theological education, books & literature, pastoral training programs, leadership development, educative management, and pastoral & family ministries, to become mature bodies of Christ, to in turn carry out the Great Commission around of the World. We are partners of Reaching & Teaching International Ministries
You can find more at: www.palmministries.org and www.facebook.com/joselitoyanitaorellana

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